LITTLE ROCK — The best Glen Campbell album you’ve probably never heard was released in 1965, and it was called The Big Bad Rock Guitar of Glen Campbell.
It’s a terrific-sounding instrumental record that features Campbell’s muscular, surf-inflected lead guitar lines tearing through 12 tracks, most of them covers of fairly well-known, then-current hits — the Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run,” the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride,” Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual,” Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” the “James Bond Theme.” While there’s nothing terribly notable about the arrangements, Campbell’s tone and attack are exquisite, and his command of his Stratocaster seems effortless.
People who know Campbell primarily as the bigvoiced singer of late ’60s and ’70s pop songs will be impressed by his pure musicality and virtuosity. In just over 27 minutes, Campbell makes a case for himself as one of the genuine masters of the electric guitar.
While I can’t find any detailed information about the other musicians on the album, it seems reasonable to assume that they were, like Campbell, members of Hal Blaine’s famed “Wrecking Crew” of versatile “first call” players. Guitarist Billy Strange is credited as arranger/conductor on the album, and he contributed the song “The Lone Arranger.” Saxophonist Steve Douglas produced. Blaine was probably the drummer. Maybe Leon Russell sat in on keyboards, maybe it was Dr. John. Carol Kaye might have played bass. That was before any of them were famous, when they were all anonymous sidemen.
It’s tempting to think of the record as a session player’s demo reel, especially when taken with his 1964 album, the aptly named The Astounding 12-String Guitar of Glen Campbell, which had the Arkansas picker showing off in a similar, if more countrified, context.
That Campbell was an entertainment veteran even before he hit the big time in the late 1960s is well-known — what casual fans might not grasp is how hard he worked at show biz. He’d played on Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra records, he’d stood in for Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys, he’d attempted to cash in on the folk singing craze — with Big Bluegrass Special, his excellent first album from 1962, credited to The Green River Boys & Glen Campbell, which featured the formidable combination of Joe Osborn and James Burton, on bass and acoustic guitar, respectively. (That album used to be obscure, but I found it in seconds on Spotify.)
Given Campbell’s remarkable instrumental skills, it is somewhat ironic that he became famous as a variety show host and dramatic singer of what, in another context, might have been considered Jimmy Webb’s art songs. The persona he displayed on TV, and to a lesser extent in the movies True Grit and Norwood, suggests a more lightweight talent, maybe a rustic John Davidson. Campbell had teen idol looks in a teen idol era, and he was consequently underrated by the people who paid serious attention to pop music. He was never a critics’ favorite.
He should have been — and he should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (It seems impossible that he’s not.) And that’s not simple homerism talking; it’s hard to think of any artist who has preserved as long and as fruitfully as Campbell who isn’t. He’s got the numbers — and a body of work that runs much deeper than his greatest hits.
No doubt Campbell made a lot of forgettable music; that’s one of the hazards of a life spent picking and grinning. But he was great before he was a star, and his last record, 2011’s Ghost in the Mirror, was pretty terrific as well.
It’s unlikely he’ll do much, if anything, from the early or later days when he plays Little Rock’s Robinson Center Music Hall tonight — if previous concerts along his Goodbye Tour have been any indication he’ll rely mostly on his greatest hits.
And he’ll just kill them.
Weekend, Pages 32 on 09/06/2012